No, no - infinity minus one is infinity. Or, more accurately, the cardinality of the set containing omega members is equivalent to the cardinality of the set containing omega minus one members (the sets are in one-one correspondence). What you mean is that the string can, in principle, be the length of any natural number.

The PDP books are certainly still the bible for ANN research, but if your interest is in Artificial Intelligence applications of ANNs and you are wanting a high-level abstract philosophical introduction to the technical issues and surrounding theories in the cognitive disciplines, I recommend: Minds and Computers. Carter, 2007. Edinburgh University Press. www.mindsandcomputers.net

The clearest connection between Philosophy and Computer Science lies in the intersection between formal logic, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of computation - namely the field of Artificial Intelligence, understood as a sub-field of Cognitive Science. [shamelessselfpromotion] My book 'Minds and Computers' (EUP 2007) - mindsandcomputers.net - is an accessible introduction to the philosophy of artificial intelligence and gives a sustained account of the relation between philosophy, computation and cognition! [/shamelessselfpromotion]